


audacity

by mickleborger



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: ANGRY ABOUT THE DALISH HELLO, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickleborger/pseuds/mickleborger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only real questions about Merrill's use of blood magic are 'why is anyone surprised' and 'do you really mean to tell me that this had never happened before.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	audacity

The air of the cave is dry, just as it had been in the ruins that had taken Tamlen, and her eyes water. The stone beneath her is just the wrong shade of grey to be only stone, though perhaps this is a trick of the light; and there is something to it that is unlike the stone in any other cave, as if it does not quite push back up at her soles the way it should. Had the ruins been like this? She had been too busy with the darkspawn to notice, too busy keeping her hands from shaking on her staff. If she had heard in the background the same soft lilting she hears now, she does not remember.

What she does remember is this: Mahariel standing ailing but proud at Paivel's side, reciting the fall of the Dales with him, knuckles white. What she does remember, clearer than any edge in this echoless hall, are the words 'never again' repeated over and again with a cool, learned anger. She remembers the faces of the children staring up in wonder and she remembers being one of them, listening to her own clan's hahren tell the same story with the same tightness of the jaw. She remembers that the old realms have fallen, and fallen again. She remembers that their gods have abandoned them until they prove themselves worthy, until they reclaim what was stolen from them.  All the way back to her youngest days she remembers these things, and though she does not know why, they are as stark to her as daylight.

(What she forgets is that their gods have been absent for much longer than the newer stories tell. For an instant, she forgets that Fen'harel imprisoned them all and stalks the Beyond now alone. She forgets about the small wolf statue at the edge of camp, staring out into the forest as if it were not well aware of the people behind it, as if it were not simply waiting...)

Her hand is small in Audacity's but it does not shake.


End file.
